Found and Lost (11 page)

19

The cell phone's retro ringtone shrilled throughout the house, and
The Invisible Man
dropped from Clay's hand to his lap. He launched from his chair and the circle of lamplight, across the dark living room. The paperback slid to the floor. A corner of the cover bent under his heel.
Be Khloe, be Khloe, be Khloe
—the same mantra that had pounded in his head every time the phone rang this evening. Yul wanting to reschedule the bowling game. A photography client of Natalia's. A wrong number.

He glanced at the caller ID and took the call anyway, hoping he'd silenced the ring before it woke Natalia with that same stillborn hope. “Hi, Mom.”

“Clayton, it's Dad. Your mother wanted me to let you know we got in okay. The flight was pleasantly boring.”

“Great.”

“And we're with Don right now, on the way to the house to see Tina. What's new with my favorite granddaughter?”

Clay's stomach bottomed out. He should have anticipated the routine question. He should have hit Ignore to silence the phone, not Accept.

“She's asleep at the moment.”

Khloe probably was, somewhere. Curled on her side, the same way she'd slept since she was a toddler. Nestled in a stranger's bed. Clay trudged back across the room in the dark and kicked
The Invisible Man
.

“Oh, I'm such an idiot.” Dad's voice distanced from the phone. “Honey, it's midnight in Michigan.”

“Sure is.” Clay stooped to pick up the book, and his body melted toward the carpet. He sat, knees up.

“Were you in bed, Clayton? I'm such an idiot.”

“I was reading.”

“Well, Tina's had a rough day. We're stopping to pick up all the ingredients for your mother's chicken noodle soup, and she's cooking for her tomorrow. Hoping this perks her up some.”

Clay smoothed a new crease from the book's cover. “Sounds good.”

“They're talking about hospice. It felt like we were intruding at first, but Don seems relieved to see us. I guess we belong here.”

“You don't belong here.”
Dad's voice, Dad's hands clamped around Clay's arms, pulling him away from the window in the door. Away from Hilary's face.

“People should be with her, to say good-bye.” The words emerged like acid, burned the back of Clay's throat, but nothing in his tone gave him away. Nothing ever had. Not in the twenty-eight years since his parents told him they'd ended Hilary's life support while he was at school.

“Seems you're right. Don cried just seeing us. Caught both of us off guard and him, too, I think. Anyway, we might be here for a few weeks.”

Mom's best friend, about to succumb to ovarian cancer. Would she put all the pictures away as if Tina never existed? Quiet lengthened over the phone line. Dad probably didn't notice. Clay stretched out on the carpet and stared at the ceiling.

Tap tap.

Clay jolted up as if cattle-prodded. Knuckles on glass. The sound couldn't be anything else. The lamp's reflection glared off every window in this room. Someone could be watching him through any one of them.

Tap tap tap.

No, the noise came from farther away. “Dad, I'll talk to you later.”

“Of course. Sorry to bother you at midnight.” The chuckle grated.

“No problem. Good night.” Clay ended the call before his father could respond, but Dad probably wouldn't notice that, either.

He stuffed the phone in his pocket and crawled on hands and knees to the lamp. He reached up to shut it off, and a quick image of the bulb flashed on his retinas as the room blackened. But if the Constabulary were out there, they'd been listening to his conversation. They knew he wasn't talking to Khloe. And if they wanted in, they wouldn't knock on his window.

He stood in the dark and tried to step toward the noise.

Tap tap tap tap.

Helpful. It came from the guestroom, other side of the laundry room. No way to discover the prowler's identity or purpose before revealing himself. Not from inside the house, anyway. Clay detoured to the garage door and slipped outside, bare feet silent on the cement floor. He stretched his hands out for his bike and grazed a handlebar. He dodged before he could break his toe against the side stand.

Clay felt for the switch beside the door and turned off the motion-activated floodlight. He eased the door open and stepped outside. A wedge of moon peeked around a cloud, enough to see his own feet but not to scan for intruders. Clay's hands clenched. If he could identify this imbecile as a Constabulary agent, he'd try to get in one good punch, then claim he hadn't recognized the uniform in the dark.

The scent of honeysuckle filled the air as he rounded the side of the house. He crouched beside the bush and peered around the edge of the leaves.

Definitely a man. About his height. The moon emerged to halo a shaggy blond head. Low-rise jeans and a V-neck T-shirt instead of a uniform. Perfect. Maybe Clay could clock the guy in the teeth before he could call out his Constabulary identity.

He eased around the honeysuckle and crept closer, almost on top of the man before he turned, the whites of his eyes bright in the dark.

“What—?”

Clay threw a punch at the whisper. The man ducked, grabbed Clay's arm, and half twisted it behind his back before letting go.

“Mr. Hansen.”

Wait. That voice. Clay sprang back for another look. Austin Delvecchio.

20

There was no ducking around Marcus, no brushing past him, certainly no shoving him out of the way. The edge of the counter dug into Violet's back.

“You're a … spy.” His teeth gritted against the last word.

Deny it.
But words were missing. All of them. Thoughts evaporated in a flash of vision—Austin earning that doctorate in honor of a girl who'd disappeared, remembering at his graduation the night he'd sprawled on the grass beside a merry-go-round and caressed that girl's skin, the night she volunteered to make a difference for her society. And Dad and Mom, calling around when they opened the fridge and caught a whiff of week-past-the-date chocolate milk, which would happen before Violet's fish starved. And Khloe, knowing she'd been asleep upstairs while her friend …

“You,” Marcus said. “You were at the Table. You were at Penny's. You're here, but—but I took your phone.”

He stepped closer. He kicked the keys across the floor. They hit the wall and ricocheted. Violet closed her eyes.

“Look at me.”

Her eyes sprang open and couldn't see around him. He'd closed the distance to only a few feet. He jabbed his finger in her face.

“You … did it … all.”

Say something, make him believe you.
Violet screamed.

Footsteps barreled in behind him. “What is the matter with this child?”

“I-I don't … I didn't …” His voice fractured with confusion, concern.

Belinda, don't listen to him!

Hands cupped Violet's face. She tried to wrench away.

“Sugar, it's Belinda. What scared you? What happened?”

Violet gulped for air, but the room had turned into a vacuum. “He-he was … going to—”

“Marcus, what on earth did you do?”

“Nothing.”

Gray dots sprinkled her vision. If she fainted, he could kill her before she woke up. She reached out and caught Belinda's sweater. “Don't go.”

“I'm staying right here. Just take some deep breaths. You're perfectly safe.”

A minute or two must have passed. Violet's confetti thoughts slowly glued themselves back together. Her vision cleared, and her breaths came easily. Over Belinda's shoulder, Marcus stood against the far wall and sipped his coffee. Violet ducked his stare.

“That's better.” Belinda rubbed Violet's arm. “Now, how about y'all tell me what went on in here?”

“She's a spy.”

Belinda swiveled toward Marcus. “She's not even out of high school.”

“She was hiding my keys.”

“I asked her to.”

He blinked, but then he shook his head. “She was at my church, at Penny's, everybody in the last three days—” His voice choked off.

Belinda bustled to him without a hint of fear. Her hand covered maybe half of his shoulder. “That don't make her guilty. You're not seeing this right.”

Violet's mind finally shed the last of its stupor. She was exposed. She couldn't lie well enough to keep Belinda's trust. But in this moment, they both stood on the far side of the kitchen. If she could get out of the house, lose them in the yard, in the woods, in the dark …
Without Khloe?

Marcus would realize Khloe's cluelessness after a minute of conversation with her, and besides, he wouldn't harm his friend's daughter. Khloe would be safe right here until Violet could get to a phone.

She dashed for the front door.

After about four yards, an iron arm wrapped around her midsection and lifted her off her feet. She twisted and kicked and jabbed an elbow into flesh.

“Stop,” Marcus said in her ear.

Belinda stared at her as if Violet were a con-cop in full uniform. No hope to deny anything now. She stilled in Marcus's grip.

“Khloe doesn't know anything,” Violet said. “You don't have to hurt her.”

Their identical, frozen shock—no blinking, no breathing—couldn't be an act. As if neither one of them had ever considered inflicting harm, not only on her or Khloe, but on anyone. Marcus's brown eyes narrowed, and he set her down. Gently.

Her knees wobbled, along with the words that gushed out of her. “You have to believe me. She has no idea. Please, I won't tell the con-cops anything, but if you can't let me go, just don't hurt Khloe.”

“That's enough hogwash.” Belinda didn't step forward, but her voice softened. “No one's hurting you, and no one's going to.”

Marcus didn't want her dead?

Fear had layers. The kind that robbed your breath and threw gray dots in front of your eyes when a Christian man three times your size backed you against a counter—that kind must be a tough, thick layer that took time to peel off. Because Violet's hands couldn't stop shaking.

“Violet,” Belinda said. “We're not what you've been told we are. Marcus included, though he might fool you when he's riled up.”

Marcus let out something between a huff and a growl and paced away from them.

“Son, you intimidate full-grown men. How do you think she felt?”

He faced the window, hands latched onto his neck.

Belinda's hand hesitated halfway to Violet's shoulder, then settled there with a sort of determination. “You're safe here.”

“What about the grave in the woods?”

Confusion creased around Belinda's eyes. “When could you … oh, when my neighbor came over? Don't know what you found outside that tunnel, but there's no grave.”

Words kept spilling. Violet forced them not to quaver. “It was the right length for a person. It wasn't brand new, but the ground was dug up and filled back in. Khloe and I both saw it.”

“Whatever you saw, that's not what it was.”

Marcus turned away from the window and trudged across the room. “I'll call Lee.”

A few seconds after he left the kitchen, the click of a lock drifted from the living room. The glass door slid open and shut.

“He'll be outside awhile,” Belinda said. “We can get some things said. First off, how did you—?”

She broke off her own sentence as Wren plodded into the room with pinching lips. Another contraction? No, this was concern. “Is everything fine now?”

“Absolutely fine. Violet here just scared herself for a minute.”

Wren's teeth flashed. “My heart rate took off like wild horses with that scream, girl.”

“Sorry.” Violet couldn't try to smile back.

“You go take it easy,” Belinda said. “Give me one minute and we'll get ready for that little one, get you a nightgown and a room upstairs, clean sheets and towels.”

“I think it was just stress. I'll feel awful if you call your nurse for no reason, especially in the dead of night.”

“Don't you worry about that, sugar. Would you mind waiting in the other room for just a minute?”

Wren glanced at Violet, then nodded to Belinda.

When she was gone, Belinda motioned for Violet to follow her from the kitchen to the dining room. “Don't want her overhearing your story and getting upset. Go on and have a seat.”

Since arriving, Violet and Khloe had eaten meals at the small white-painted table in the kitchen. This table stretched long enough for ten chairs to surround it, one at each end and four on each side. Violet took the closest one.

Belinda sat across from her. “Okay, now, you tell me exactly what happened.”

Violet looked away from the puckering creases in her face, the hint of fear behind her eyes.

“I brought you into my home, and you put me in danger. Now you look me in the eye like a woman, not a little girl, and you tell me what you've done.”

Don't make her mad.
But the warning voice in Violet's head sounded scratchy, thoughtless, programmed. Belinda wasn't who the con-cops said she was. Who Austin said she was. Good grief, according to Austin and the con-cops, Belinda—a non-Christian fighting for Christian freedom—didn't even exist. Violet lifted her eyes.

“Violet, I know the Constabulary told you some hair-raising things about us.”

“It's pretty much common knowledge.”

“These days, I guess it is. And when I think it through that way, I've got less inclination to … well, there it is. What'll I do to you? Not a single blessed thing.”

“How can you side with the Christians? You're old enough to be smart.”

Belinda's laugh welled up and spilled out. “It's harder than that to hurt my feelings, young lady.”

“I wasn't trying to.”

Her humor slipped away. She leaned across the table, and her crinkled hands reached out to squeeze Violet's. “Then think on what you just said. I'm old enough to know how things were. How things are. Give me a little credit here, and things'll start making sense to you.”

The words sank into Violet, like fish flakes drifting down through water. She tried to ignore them, but something inside her chased and gobbled them anyway. “Okay, explain it to me.”

“You were, what, ten or eleven when the Constabulary began?”

“Ten.”

“The year you were born, so much of this was already in place. It's natural to you for people to go to prison for their thoughts, their beliefs, their prayers. When I was ten—my heavens, when I was twenty and thirty—a man could walk down the sidewalk with his Bible under his arm and not be breaking a single law.”

“People can do that now, too.”

“Oh, not that reinterpreted sham version the government's selling now. I'm talking about the actual Bible. The one that's over two thousand years old.”

The Bible was that old?

“And I've got news for you, Violet. The people you've met who believe in that original Bible, the people you handed over to be jailed and brainwashed …” Belinda pulled her hands back and steepled them in front of her. “They're good people. Precious people. Not hateful, not dangerous.”

A shudder seized Violet. “Not all of them.”

“I'll admit, if you were a grown man, Marcus might have rounded your jaw. But he would never raise a hand to you.”

“He was really mad. Really extremely mad.”

“He's dog-tired, and he's grieving.”

Grieving? Seriously? Belinda made it sound as if Violet had sentenced all those people to death. All they had to do was cooperate, and they'd be free again in a few months.

Belinda glanced toward the kitchen and sighed. “That's as much as I can say. But I'm sorry he made you feel unsafe. That wasn't right of him.”

This wasn't a role Belinda had shrugged into. Her eyes held the same wide honesty they'd offered for the last day and a half. This was truth. Violet shut her eyes, and that breathless second hit her again, the collision of Marcus's arm and her stomach as he hefted her off her feet with no effort at all.

Faint words bubbled out of her, some deep well inside that didn't want to understand and couldn't help understanding. “He's a Christian?”

“No question about it.”

“But you're sure he won't hurt me.”

“Violet, the Christians I've met—the real ones—they don't hate. They love, or they try to. And most of them do it real well.”

Violet stood up and pushed back from the table. Possibilities congealed in her chest until breathing took effort. Christians—some of them, at least—might be safe, loving people.

“I texted a con-cop with addresses. The church, Marcus's church. And that woman's house. Penny.”

Belinda's steepled hands retreated to her lap. “You took their freedom from them.”

I took their freedom.
Violet tasted the words, swallowed them, and their rottenness choked her all the way down. But she'd done it for the good of others. Christians having freedom was dangerous. History had proved that, just look at her school textbooks. She backed away from the table, from the circle of lamplight that hung on an antique chain from the ceiling, from the first hint of warmth in Belinda's eyes since Violet had tried to sprint for the door.

“I would have texted your address too, but Marcus took my phone battery.”

Belinda nodded.

“Khloe doesn't know.”

Another nod.
Stop that, say something.

“Her dad, he knows Marcus, he's a Christian too, and I thought … I thought it was the right thing to do.”

Belinda's hands reemerged. She folded them and grounded them on the table, arms half-reaching toward Violet. “What do you think now?”

“I don't know.”

“That's a start.”

Maybe she should apologize for good measure, but the words stuck in her throat. She wasn't sorry. Not entirely, not yet.

Not yet. As if she would be in the future.
What's happening to my brain?

“Belinda?” From the living room, Wren's voice pierced the pause.

Belinda pressed her hands against her forehead. They lowered a second later. “Not a word of this to Wren, now. She needs to stay calm. She doesn't want to believe it, but she'll be holding her little one by morning.”